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The Cunard 175th Anniversary Festival of its founding in Liverpool will start a spectacular new era of cultural links with New York and North America according to designer Wayne Hemingway.

The newly-announced director will design and co-ordinate a special series of events across the city on Saturday July 4, 2015, to coincide with Cunard’s flagship RMS Queen Mary 2 sailing for New York, Boston and Halifax from Liverpool Cruise Terminal.

This transatlantic crossing will recreate the maiden voyage of Cunard’s first ship RMS Britannia on July 4, 1840, from Liverpool to Boston, which was the world’s first scheduled ocean steamship travel.

Wayne, 53, who will head the programme, curated by Hemingway Design, Vintage Festival and Deco Publique, with Liverpool city council, said: “This is such a big occasion that it will bring back those cultural links with New York and North America,

“We will be working with our opposite numbers in New York, Boston and Halifax to ensure this is an international celebration to bring all these cities once involved in transatlantic travel back together.

Wayne Hemingway is to be special festival director of the 175th anniversary of Cunard.

“This will be a public celebration getting everyone here involved as Liverpool has so much to offer. It will cover aspects like fashion, music, film and food.

“I hope it will revive Liverpool as an international cruise liner gateway for the north, just as it was in the days of the ocean liners.

“While Cunard is at the heart of this, to me the event is about celebrating the glamour and excitement of ocean travel, as Liverpool is where it all started and this way of travel changed the world culturally.

“I’ve been to Liverpool many times when I was a youngster to visit the clubs and I’d never have come down to the waterfront. Now I think it’s magnificent and it’s the kind of place people from North America would want to visit.

“The potential was always there but it was allowed to deteriorate. However, that’s reversed and this big river is a huge asset for the future. What we’re doing is just the start.

“I’m here for the first meeting to start putting together the local team, but I shall be coming back on regularly as the programme together. A festival on this scale is really fun and the start of ocean travel is such a thing to celebrate.

“I also wanted to do this as Liverpool now has a national reputation with the Giants and other occasions of staging these big public events and I want to be part of that.”

Claire McColgan, Liverpool city council director of culture, said Wayne Hemingway, who co-founded the Red or Dead fashion brand, and his company Hemingway Design, were first choice to curate the Cunard 175th Anniversary July 4 Festival.

She said: “Wayne has a reputation for putting on successful vintage events and his international status is synonymous with British style means he will create a festival which will stand out.

“He will bring a distinctive imprint to the event and draw in a whole new audience to the river as well as local people.”